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Capitol Hill Spy

HALF A LOAF, HALF A LOAF, HALF A LOAF ONWARD...

by Hibernicus

After much fanfare and many dull briefings, President Clinton has announced the US position for the upcoming Kyoto greenhouse negotiations. The President vowed we would claw our way back to 1990 emission levels three years after the end of Al Gore's second term, i.e. 2012. Within his own administration, the President was cross pressured fiercely by the environmentalists and the economists. True to his style, he split the difference.

Enviros were quick to criticize what they characterized as a tepid response. European negotiators seemed to agree. At the preparatory conference in Bonn, little progress was made towards any kind of multi-continent consensus. Some diplomats suggest that the treaty negotiations might collapse. If so, it will be because other countries just couldn't sign on to the substance of the US position; Bill Clinton can't get much greener without jeopardizing the treaty's chances in the Senate next year and risking the political future of his vice president.

In fairness to the Administration, you have to admit that the President and Veep have worked fairly hard to educate public opinion. There been regional conferences, scientific symposiums. TV weather forecasters camped out on the South Lawn to broadcast direct from the White House on the perils of climate change. The media flogs El Nino as a catastrophe in the making. More Americans understand that human activity has altered the global atmosphere. What they don't understand is what it all means. Environmentalists are now obliged to describe how lower emissions can translate to a better life.

Europeans remain perplexed on why techno-powerhouse America emits almost three times as much carbon dioxide per capita than the Old World. The answers are as varied as sports utility vehicles clogging California freeways to corporate America's incessant focus on the next quarter. US consumers and businesses are accustomed to cheap energy, and tend to get a little huffy at suggestions to raise the price. The upshot will be that the Europeans and Japanese will probably dominate the markets in energy efficiency and alternative fuels.

The US fossil fuel industries are doing their best. They've launched a sophisticated campaign of print, television, and radio ads that warn of a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and an international treaty that binds America but not its economic competitors (like China). Inordinate costs for consumers and disaster for the economy. American sacrifice for the profit of others. It's all pretty potent.

The legendary Honest Working Man is finding new friends these days. Conspicuous among them is stalwart supply-sider Jack Kemp. In a New York Times op-ed that evinced lavish concern for the Average Guy, Kemp quoted an AFL-CIO spokesman to the effect that American workers would suffer most under any effort to reduce greenhouse emissions. We can expect lots more of the same from other habitues of corporate boardrooms.

The business effort underscores an environmentalist weakness. Our campaigns are long on moral suasion and short on economics. We need more publicity for, and repetition of, studies on green jobs and energy efficiency. We can't forget that feelings of economic insecurity in this country are not illusions: median income for a family of four today is three percent lower than the comparable figure for 1989.

In the same vein, it would also probably be a mistake to grant complete emission waivers to big but emerging international traders like China, Brazil, and Indonesia, no matter how poor their inhabitants. American domestic opinion probably will be tough on requiring some sort of targets for the developing countries but relatively easy on allowing for generous technology transfers to meet those targets. How to pay for those transfers is another question. Americans have the crazy idea that we already give away a lot of foreign aid, and any proposed assistance program won't begin with a large domestic constituency. Still and all, anything is better than a blanket waiver for the South; an exemption for the developing world will doom the treaty in the United States Senate.

Even the Administration's modest emission-lowering goals will have trouble attracting a filibuster-proof sixty votes. Enviros are going to have show the Senators that they have the muscle and will to make global warming an electoral issue. At this point it does little good to beat up on the Administration. It's time to push for a reasonable treaty to emerge from Kyoto, and then to put in place a tough-minded strategy for ratification in the Senate. Given the current composition of that august body, ours is a full plate.

 

Hibernicus is a career traffic cop at the intersection of Environment Street and Politics Boulevard. His need for quick money makes him a frequent contributor to these pages.

 

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